2018/11/08

LOOSING YOURSELF

When I told my mum that I wanted to move to London and study Fashion Journalism, she told me that I've chosen a very lonely road, that I'd probably find very little friends and that my entire life would probably consist of work only.

I guess somewhere deep down I knew that she was right - I mean, mums are always right so why would this be an exception? And still, when it came to the point of moving, I was desperate to build a circle of friends that I could simply have fun with and talk to about everything at the same time. And it went all wrong.

I've been living in the UK now for a good one and a half year and let me tell you, I've never felt this lonely and lost in my entire life.

Career-wise, I can't complain. I've found an amazing job with the best boss one could wish for. I've met such incredibly talented and kind people. And unlike many others, I can honestly say that I look forward to every hour I get to spend at uni.

And yet, in the process of doing what I love and working to get where I want to be, I've completely lost myself. I say things I would've never said a year ago. I do things I'm more than ashamed of. And the more I try to hold on to the person I was/want to be, the more I lose sight of how to be that person.

Between refusing to feel and attempting to act normal, I've cracked. And I have no idea how to get out of this anymore. With every baby step I make in the right direction, I feel like some bigger force is pushing me three steps backwards. And I know that I can't blame anyone for this except myself.

I've been told so many times that it's so easy to lose yourself in this industry. Yet, the funny part about all of this is that this industry is the only stable thing in my life right now. The only time I am truly me is when I write. And the only time I am truly happy is when I'm so deep into work that the rest of the world becomes a complete blur.

And I've been functioning like that for the past year. I've worked through grief and sorrow, through sadness and anxiety. And I feel like right now it's all coming back and there's nothing I can do about it. No matter how hard I try to forget, to move on and to suppress, it somehow all comes up again. I get flashbacks at the most random times of the day, I lose control over things that couldn't matter less on the big scale of things. But somehow they matter to me - they matter more than they ever have.

I've grown up being told that showing emotions in public is showing weakness and that trusting people can and will probably be your downfall. And every time I thought that it's going to be different, I fell harder than the time before. Somehow, showing emotions seems to have become synonymous for giving people the authorisation to use you. Or at least, that's what has happened to me up until now every single time.

I believe that we always have some kind of choice - and if we chose the wrong thing, we have to own up to our decisions and live with the consequences. I've become pretty good at suppressing feelings in general in the meantime (sad? I know). The problem is, I forgot how to let it out in safe spaces at the same time...

Lesson of the day? Don't trust too much. Don't give too much. Don't expect too much. Because it's exactly that "too much" that's going to break you. No matter how strong you are, everyone needs to step back at some point and remember why they started. And everyone needs to let it out and acknowledge that not everything is perfect and that one's hurt from time to time. It's okay to cry, to feel and to grief. And it's okay to talk about it. You just have to remember the difference between "letting it out" to get over it and getting so caught up in talking about it that you lose sight of what really matters: you.